New Frontier
by flaretempest
Summary: With Hoenn's Battle Frontier on the verge of financial ruin, three new battle facilities are built in the hopes that they will bring back the Frontier's golden age. Unfortunately, success always comes at a price.
1. Chapter 1

**In order to get the most out of this, you need to have played Emerald version. If you haven't, then I'm sorry for writing a terrible and incomprehensible tale. **

Simon was sitting back in his chair at the head of table, his face impassive as he tapped his foot impatiently on the marble floor. He kept glancing at his watch, as if he each little peek would miraculously speed the flow of time. But instead, it had the adverse effect of making him even more impatient.

Around the rest of the table, his staff also waited, though considerably less impatiently. To the untrained eye, they were a laughably ragtag bunch -wearing outrageous outfits like martial arts uniforms, lab coats, and safari outfits that clashed with Simon's crisp business suit- but they all knew that they were among the most feared and respected trainers in the world. They were Hoenn's Frontier Brains.

Well, only about half of them were truly Frontier Brains- the rest were assistants, aides, and deputies.

Olivia was one such deputy. She stifled a yawn as she lifted her mug of coffee to her mouth, obliviously sloshing it and spilling a few drops on the sleeves of her lab coat. After taking a large gulp of the long-cold coffee, she slumped down, not feeling any more awake than before. Beside her, Roger, the head of the Battle Factory, elbowed her stiffly in the side. When that got no response, he elbowed her again and hissed into her ear.

"Olivia, sit up. We need to act professional."

At this, Olivia mumbled a response.

"Look around you," she mumbled as she gestured to the rest of the table. "Nobody else is trying to look professional."

This was true. Some of the others had their heads down and were snoring loudly, others talked amongst themselves or read magazines, and still others simply shoveled food into their mouths.

But Roger persisted. "Look, I could care less about what the others are doing. Please, just sit up. We need to be on Simon's good side," he whispered, his voice taking on a hint of desperateness.

Olivia reluctantly sat up, which made Roger instantly relieved. She snuck a glance at the head of the table. Simon didn't seem to have noticed; he was still staring at his watch, tapping his foot.

Suddenly, the phone in front of Simon buzzed. He instantly jabbed the speaker button.

"Mr. Simon, the trainers have arrived," said his secretary.

"Send them in immediately," he growled, and then hung up.

As if under a spell, everyone in the room instantly ceased what they were doing, sat up, and turned their heads to gaze the door. Olivia and Roger focused on the door more intently than the others. For all they knew, the people who walked through that door could be their replacements.

A few seconds later, the door slowly creaked open, and in walked three people. Olivia nearly laughed at their appearance before she reminded herself that was wearing a coffee-stained lab coat.

The first one through the door was a young man walking with long, confident strides with a goofy grin plastered on his face. But that wasn't what made the people seated at the table stare. Rather, it was the fact that he was wearing a zoot suit.

Right behind him was a teenage girl who seemed to exude so much confidence and arrogance that they were practically oozing off of her tanned skin. Thankfully, her eyes were hidden behind obnoxious-looking sunglasses.

And following her was another young man about as old as the first. But the similarities ended there. This individual walked with shy, tentative steps; his most distinguishing features were his green, sickly complexion and his ashen-colored great coat.

The three newcomers marched to the front of the room and stood behind Simon's chair. Simon pressed a button on his phone, and his secretary walked in with a screen and a projector, which she immediately set up. The first slide of the presentation displayed a line graph with an arrow sharply going down.

"As you may have already noticed, our Battle Frontier's profits have been steadily decreasing since the openings of Sinnoh's and Johto's battle frontiers," said Simon as he traced his finger along the red line. His finger halted at the last point plotted on the graph.

"You can see here that last month's profit was barely a profit at all; we came darn close to breaking even."

He then traced his finger downwards again, to a point marked 'Estimated Profit - July'. It was in the negatives.

"This graph is one month old. So according to our accounting office, the Battle Frontier will cease to become profitable sometime this month."

Everyone sucked in a breath. To Olivia, it sounded like someone had turned a super-powered vacuum for just half a second.

Simon raised an eyebrow. "Judging by your reactions, none of you knew how bad it was. Well, I'm here to tell that I haven't known about it for too long, either, only about six months. That's when I had to come up with ideas to save this place."

The next slide, a graph of expenses, came up. This graph's line was relatively flat and stable compared to the last graph's.

"Now, this is a graph of our expenses. As you can see, it is relatively stable."

The secretary pressed a button, and another line appeared on the graph labeled 'Estimated Expenses w/ Non-Essential Spending'. It was only slightly lower than the original line.

"Even if we were to cut non-essential expenses, such as street lighting, the pokemon centers, the Smeargle Cave, and general maintenance, we would still only be reducing expenses by about ten percent. Not nearly enough to save the Frontier. And cutting those expenses would also have the adverse effect of driving away our visitors."

The secretary pressed another button. A line labeled 'Estimated Expenses w/ Culled Facilities' appeared. This one was a lot lower than the original line.

"As you can see, cutting low-profit battle facilities would have significantly decreased our expenses," he said, with a plaintive look towards Olivia and Roger, which made them both cringe. "However, it would have been too little, too late. Our financial situation was too far downhill by the time I got word of our little problem."

A new slide appeared. This one had pictures of three buildings on it. One was fantastic-looking, being completely covered with neon lights and other ostentatious decorations. The next was relaxing and welcoming, resembling almost an amusement park. The third was dreary and dank-looking; Olivia noticed that it was the only picture that was taken at night.

"You may or may not have noticed three new buildings being constructed in the Frontier. They will open tomorrow. These are new battle facilities: the Battle Casino (he pointed to the light-covered building), the Battle Resort (he pointed to the amusement park-like facility), and the Battle Vault (he pointed to the dreary-looking building). These three facilities are my gamble. They will either save the Frontier or drag us down. My analysts predict that these facilities, if successful, will bring enough profit to stabilize the Frontier's financial situation and eventually return us to a time of prosperity."

He paused. "These three trainers," he said as he waved at the three people standing behind him, "will be the new Frontier Brains. I expect you to treat them with the utmost respect. The survival of the Battle Frontier is dependent on their success."

Olivia grimaced. None of the three looked capable of running a profitable battle facility, let alone facilities that needed to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next few months; the one in the zoot suit was too silly, the one with the sunglasses was too haughty, and the one in the great coat was too shy.

"This meeting is over. Return to your facilities, but look sharp. Just because we had this early staff meeting doesn't mean we won't open on time."


	2. Chapter 2

After two years of working at the Battle Frontier, Olivia had fallen into a routine: each day, after the whistle of the Battle Factory blew to announce the end of the day shift, she would unceremoniously dump any and all of her uncompleted paperwork into a messenger bag and set off for one of the Frontier's many restaurants, hoping that the food would give her enough energy for the final stretch. After waving goodbye to Rodger, a natural night owl who practically lived at the factory, she made her way to her favorite restaurant in the whole Frontier, and possibly the whole Hoenn region: The Steamer.

The Steamer was the Frontier's only family-owned restaurant; the rest were chain restaurants. Unlike the chain restaurants, The Steamer retained one hundred percent of its profit; Simon took a cut of the profits of the other restaurants. Olivia heard rumors that this was because The Steamer's proprietor was a distant cousin of Simon, but she didn't really care; as long The Steamer's employees kept churning out great food, they could be caterpie in a human suit.

But without a doubt, Olivia's favorite aspect of The Steamer was its atmosphere. The entire restaurant was made up to look like a like a vintage bar; from pictures Olivia had seen, it looked almost exactly like one of the speakeasies from back when Kanto's government thought it was a marvelous idea to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol. Naturally, the ban had only increased the consumption of alcohol, especially hard liquor, by nearly tenfold.

Olivia also loved the general emptiness and silence of the place. While The Steamer was a very busy restaurant, there were few customers at this time of day, and those who did come were mostly regulars who had "reserved" seats. So, much to her surprise, Olivia found her traditional seat at the counter taken. By none other than one of the new Brains.

It was the shy, sick-looking one she had seen earlier in the day. Although he still wore the same mottled greatcoat, something about him just seemed… different. He didn't look any different at all- he was just sitting at the counter, reading a newspaper like any normal person would. Perhaps it was just the restaurant's lighting, but he seemed less sickly and gaunt than earlier in the day.

Intrigued but still rather annoyed at having her seat taken, Olivia tepidly sat herself in the stool to his right. He didn't seem to acknowledge her.

The barkeeper bustled over to her. "Same as usual, Olivia?"

"Yeah, but double the sugar. I'm gonna fall asleep at this rate," she replied. After placing her, she slumped down and would have dozed off had not the barkeeper returned promptly with her traditional evening coffee, albeit with double the sugar.

As he slid the mug over to her, he commented, "I know it seems ironic to get health advice from a bartender, but you better watch your caffeine, girl. I wouldn't want to lose a regular customer to a heart attack, especially one at your age."

Olivia dismissed his advice with a wave and a small smile. "You always tell me that. But like I always reply- I'll probably die from loss of sleep way before anything else gets me."

"If you say so," replied the bartender as he began polishing a glass.

With a small grunt, Olivia heaved her messenger bag onto the counter and pulled out a stack of papers. The bartender whistled.

"Now I see why you needed the extra sugar."

After two hours of nothing but filling out paperwork and gulping down coffee, Olivia was finally tired out- no amount of caffeine could keep her awake much longer. She looked down at the stack of paperwork and sighed- almost one third of it remained. With another sigh, she slowly placed the papers back into her bag, placed enough money on the counter to cover the cost of her coffee, and turned to leave, not realizing that her arm had accidently knocked over her recently-refilled mug of coffee. She did, however, hear the very audible THUD of a person slipping and falling to the floor behind her. Spinning around, she saw the newspaper-reading Frontier Brain sprawled on the floor behind her, lying in the puddle of her spilled coffee.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Olivia found herself as part of the crowd gathered in front of the new Battle Casino, waiting for its opening ceremony. It was a typical day in Hoenn, and she could see a few people, most likely from the frosty Sinnoh region, who were already sweating from the tropical climate.

She felt a light tap on her shoulder and turned her around, only to find herself staring at the Brain she managed to send crashing to the floor the night before.

She gulped.

"Uh… hey," she mumbled, and, realizing how awkward that sounded, stared down at her feet.

The Brain didn't anything. She slowly angled her head up.

He murmured something inaudible.

"Er… what did you say?" she asked.

Now it was his turn to glance down at his feet.

"I don't like coffee," he murmured as he stared at the ground. Olivia had to strain her ears to hear it. "That's what I said last night, too."

She flushed. She recalled the previous night at The Steamer, where, after slipping on her spilled coffee and tumbling to the floor, he simply picked himself up, muttered something that seemed to be directed at her, and shuffled out of the restaurant, not even bothering to remove his greatcoat, which was now stained with splotches of coffee.

"Well, er… I'm glad you got your coat clean," she observed, trying to be cheery.

It didn't work. Rather, it seemed to make him stare even harder at the ground.

Olivia felt more and more awkward by the second.

"So, uh… what's your name? Where are you from?" she asked, hoping to break the ice. She berated herself for not getting his name sooner, like when he crashed to the ground.

He slowly angled his head back up. His eyes drifted over to Olivia's face, but then they quickly set themselves on the expanse of the crowd behind her.

"I… I used to work at Mount Pyre… I was the groundskeeper. My name… is Blake Barrow," he mumbled, albeit a slightly louder mumble than before. "Kind of a stupid name," he added sheepishly.

"Nonsense!" a voice boomed, cutting off Olivia's chance to share her name. She and Blake turned to find that the zoot-suited Brain from yesterday had appeared next to them. He still had a goofy grin plastered on his face.

"I think that Blake Barrow is a fine name, good sir!" he said as he unceremoniously grabbed Blake's hand and shook it vigorously. "Why, it suits you perfectly! I mean, Barrow sounds like bury! And that's what you tend to do, right! Bury things to into the ground! It's like a pun!" he said merrily, still shaking Blake's hand.

He then seemed to notice Olivia for the first time.

"Why, I think I recognize you…" he said, peering intently at her. "Ah, yes! You were the one gulping down coffee at the meeting yesterday!" he said as he also grabbed her hand and shook it. "You must tell me where you got such a beverage! I have a great need for coffee myself! Why, if it hadn't been for the cup of coffee I stole off some poor sap on the way over here, I would most assuredly be asleep right now!"

He released her hand, but then looked mortified.

"Oh dear! How rude of me! I forgot to introduce myself! I broke the first rule of social interaction!" he cried. "Allow me to rectify this mistake," he said as he gave a comical bow to Blake and Olivia. "My name is Jack Jakobs, and I must say, it is a far sillier name than yours, Mr. Barrow. I mean, who spells Jakobs with a 'k'? My ancestors must have been quite a bit daft in the head!"

Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off once again by Jack.

"I must apologize, but the crowd here is growing restless. It is time for me to take the stage and open up the Battle Casino to the merry masses!" he cried as he began to push his way through the crowd, leaving a stunned Olivia and Blake behind.

"Um… is he always like that?" she asked, still befuddled by his cheery manner.

"I… I sure hope so," said Blake thoughtfully. "His personality sure is… a welcome change of pace."

In the distance, they saw Jack leap playfully up onto the stage.

"Wait… what did you do at Mount Pyre?" Olivia asked, her face turned to Blake's, eyes questioning.

Blake avoided her gaze. "Ah, nothing much. Nothing much. Just… maintenance. And… pest control. And… the occasional… uh… burial," he replied awkwardly.

She was perplexed. "Why did Simon choose you to be a new Brain?"

"I… I have no idea," he said, still avoiding her eyes. "But… probably just because of my… uh… experience… with battling dangerous pokemon. Especially ghost-types."

Olivia was still confused, but before she could continue her questioning, Jack's speech began.

"Friends, foes, and anyone who was curious about why I'm standing up here, let it be known that today marks the opening of a new battle facility: the Battle Casino! Of course, today also marks the opening of the Battle Resort and Battle Vault, but the Vault doesn't open until nightfall, and the fact that you are at the Casino's opening ceremony instead of the Resort's warms my heart deeply. Truly, feeling important does make a person feel incredible."

"Remember when you were kids and your mommy and daddy told you all the bad things you shouldn't do? Gambling was probably one of those things. Well, here at the Battle Casino, you can take that lesson and shove it from your mind, because at this facility, gambling is everything. Why, even the battles involve gambling! Gamble to play! Gamble to win!" he cried as he leapt down from the stage and kicked open one of the many doors into the facility.

"Now enter, enter!" he yelled as he waved his arms. "All who wish to challenge me, simply talk to one of my staff! You can't miss them; they're the only ones wearing suits besides myself! All who simply wish to ogle the building, well, can do that on their own! Enter, enter!"

Olivia was separated from Blake and forced towards the building by the flow of the crowd around. Only then did she realize that she still had not given Blake her name.


End file.
